Bates College Appoints Five Women Scholars to Endowed Professorships

Therí Pickens has been named the Charles A. Dana Professor of English and Africana. A Bates College faculty member since 2011, Dr. Pickens has conducted extensive research on Arab American studies, Black studies, comparative literature, and disability studies. She has authored several publications, including Black Madness :: Mad Blackness (Duke University Press, 2019). Her debut poetry collection, What Had Happened Was (Duke University Press), is set for publication in March 2025.

Dr. Pickens received her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Beverly Johnson has been named the Charles A. Dana Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences. She first joined the Bates College faculty in 2001 and has since risen to the role of department chair. A biogeochemist, her current research focuses on understanding carbon cycling in Maine Blue Carbon ecosystems as a means to mitigate climate change. She is a member of the Blue Carbon Initiative and founding member of the Maine Blue Carbon Network.

Dr. Johnson received her bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in geological sciences from the University of Delaware. She holds a Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of Colorado.

Lillian Nayder has been named the Charles A. Dana Professor of English. She began her career with Bates College in 1989. Throughout her 35-year tenure, she has had stints as department chair and chair of the humanities division. As a professor, she teaches courses and conducts extensive research on nineteenth-century British fiction. She has authored multiple books, including The Other Dickens: A Life of Catherine Hogarth (Cornell University Press, 2010).

Dr. Nayder earned her bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

Sonja Pieck has been named the Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies. Currently, she serves as chair of her department. Her academic interests center around how various forms of nature are produced and how they become meaningful to different groups of people. She also studies environmental governance and political participation in natural resources. She is the author of Mnemonic Ecologies: Memory and Nature Conservation Along the Former Iron Curtain (MIT Press, 2023).

Dr. Pieck holds a Ph.D. from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Amy Bradfield Douglass has been named the Whitehouse Professor of Psychology. She is a social psychologist whose work focuses on the interface of psychology and law. In her research, she examines eyewitness testimonies, distortions in eyewitness confidence, social influence in the context in legal decisions, and jury decision-making. She is the co-author of Wrightsman’s Psychology and the Legal System (Cengage Learning, 2023).

Dr. Douglass is an honors graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts. She holds a master’s degree in psychology and Ph.D. in social psychology from Iowa State University.